Carpet Cleaning Woes With Cats

When I initially moved into my current home I was not a pet owner. If you would have asked me then if I was ever going to be a pet owner, I would have said maybe, but to a dog. A little over two years later, I have two cats, and have raised four total. The problem &mdash we're not supposed to have animals and I'm having trouble keeping the carpets in their original state.

The majority of the house is laminate wood flooring. It may be an inexpensive alternative that the home owner chose, but it's a blessing in disguise because it does not scratch. When you have two kittens running around, trying to dig their nails into anything they can &mdash you're happy with the scratch resistant alternative!

I wish the laminate wood flooring was throughout, but unfortunately it's not. There's a large shag rug in the living room. I absolutely love it, but when I initially brought it into our home, there were no pets in sight. There's also carpet running up the stairs and into the hallway &mdash a complete pain to clean!

I have a vacuum and use it on a regular basis in attempts to stay on top of the overabundance of cat hair and dander, but it doesn't seem to be doing the trick. I'm not sure if we need a better vacuum, or if we should be practicing an additional cleaning method.

I was entertaining the idea of renting a cleaner from a local hardware store to deep clean the shag rug and the stair/hallway carpet &mdash but I read a few negative points about that such as that it's not good to wet carpet because it may not dry all the way and mold could potentially grow.

Our kittens are so cute and we love them so much &mdash we just need help with cleaning up after them!